thefictionvixens Page 757
Page 757
That was her mother's song.
It was the lullaby her mother would softly hum while holding her in the air-raid shelter every night during her childhood.
"This...this is..." Her voice trembled, "How could you possibly know?!"
Su Ting clutched her head in anguish, her teeth clenched: "I don't know... but she knows... she's using my mouth to sing to... you..."
Duoduo suddenly lunged at him, staring intently into his eyes: "Who exactly is that old lady?! She and Xiaoman's mother—"
"Ding--!"
Another note from the zither, sharp as a knife!
Su Ting suddenly arched his back, letting out a low growl, as if two voices were tearing at his body.
His mouth opened, but the voice was no longer his own:
“Don’t ask… I can’t say now… but Xiaoman… you are the key… your voice core… is the ‘first voice’ that she hid in your body back then…”
"Shut up!" Xiaoman suddenly screamed, her voice bursting with a blinding blue light. "I don't need any key! I just want to know where my mother went! Is she also—is she also locked up in that graveyard?!"
Chapter 1420 Bearing This Weight
Su Ting knelt on the ground, sweat mixed with black blood sliding down his forehead.
He struggled to lift his head, his golden veins flashing intensely: "Your mother... wasn't 'imprisoned.' She was... one of the first singers to 'voluntarily remain silent.' She dedicated her voice to the 'core,' just to give you three days of 'voice.' You were only five years old then, too sick to speak... It was she who, with a lifetime of singing, exchanged three days of your crying, three days of your laughter, three days of—'the voice of life.'"
As if struck by lightning, Xiaoman staggered backward.
"Impossible...she never said that..."
“Because she knows that if you tell her, you will never sing again.” The voice lowered. “She would rather you forget her than bear this burden.”
The wind has died down.
Above the ruins, only Xiaoman's trembling breath remained.
The gray child slowly squatted down, stuck the drumstick into the crack in the ground, and whispered, "So... what we're going to blow up isn't just the graveyard. What we're going to blow up is the root of the whole lie."
Duoduo gritted her teeth: "Then let's go! What are we waiting for?! Waiting for them to send the tenth IX? Waiting for the Qingdao Master to personally come and chop off our heads?"
“We need a plan.” Su Ting struggled to his feet, wiping the black blood from the corner of his mouth. “We can’t just act recklessly. The ‘Sound Core Graveyard’ has three doors: the first is a voiceprint lock, which must be opened with the ‘Pure Voice’—Xiaoman, only you can do that; the second is a frequency maze, which I must guide with the ‘Silent String’; the third…”
He paused, his gaze turning cold.
"The third door requires a living person who is willing to lend their voice—as a key, to be inserted into the door."
"Who?" The gray child looked up abruptly.
Su Ting remained silent.
Duo Duo sneered, "You want to be a hero? Wasn't being a 'human voice core' once enough? Do you want to nail yourself to the door?"
“It wasn’t me,” Su Ting shook his head. “It was—a volunteer.”
"Bullshit!" Gray Child roared, "Who the hell would willingly turn themselves into a piece of sonic core fragment?!"
As soon as the words fell——
"I."
A hoarse female voice came from the edge of the ruins.
Everyone turned around suddenly.
An old woman, wearing a tattered cloak and leaning on a cane, walked slowly towards them. Her face was covered in scars, and there was a deep suture in her throat that exposed the bone.
"Grandma Lin?!" Duoduo exclaimed in surprise.
She is a survivor of the nursing home in the west of the city. Ten years ago, she was a radio host. She was killed when her throat was slit for playing folk songs without permission. She survived, but never spoke another word.
The old woman didn't look at them, but slowly raised her hand, revealing a rusty metal button in her palm.
"This is..." Xiaoman's eyes widened, "A sound core carrier?! You've been hiding it all this time?"
Grandma Lin nodded and wrote words on the sand with her finger:
"I have been waiting for this day for twenty years."
My voice is gone, but my ears are still alive.
I know how they turned off the first light.
I know how they shut up the first child.
And now—”
She looked up, her eyes burning with fire.
"I want to exchange my silence for a child's singing voice."
Su Ting looked at her intently and finally nodded: "If you are willing, the third door will open for you."
Grandma Lin smiled. Her smile was aged, yet as bright as a star.
She pressed the button to her chest and walked step by step toward Su Ting, as if walking toward an appointment that was twenty years overdue.
Suddenly, the gray child rushed forward and grabbed her wrist: "Wait! Are you really sure? That door—once you go in, you'll never be able to speak again! You won't even be able to cry!"
Chapter 1421 Energy Injection into the Sound Core
Grandma Lin stopped and turned to look at him.
Then, he slowly pulled a yellowed photograph from his pocket.
In the photo, a little girl with a bow in her hair is grinning and holding up a worn-out radio.
“Her name was Xiaoxing.” She wrote in the sand, “My granddaughter. Six years old, died on ‘Silence Purification Day.’ They said she was humming and disturbing the peace, so they injected her with ‘voice paralysis’ on the spot. When she died, her mouth was open, as if she wanted to cry or shout, but… she couldn’t make a sound.”
She gently placed the photo on the ground and pressed one corner down with a button.
I don't ask her to come back.
My only wish is that future generations of children can sing with a silly grin, just like her.
The gray child's throat tightened and his eyes reddened.
He slowly released his grip and whispered, "...I'll play the drum for you."
Duoduo took off her watch and poured the last bit of energy into her voice core: "I'll record every second this door opens for you."
Xiaoman stepped forward and took her hand: "I'll sing the song you didn't finish for you."
Su Ting gently placed the "Silent String" on her shoulder: "I record your silence in the name of 'Chorus'."
Grandma Lin smiled and nodded.
The crowd escorted her forward, their steps heavy as a lament.
Just as they were about to step into the fissure leading to the earth—
"and many more!"
A mechanical voice suddenly rang out.
The ground trembled, and at the edge of the cracks, a jet-black mech slowly rose. It had no number, no markings, its arms were sonic cannons, and a pulsating, ghostly blue core was embedded in its chest.
It spoke slowly, its voice icy:
"Lin Wanqiu, ID A-001. You have been identified as a 'noise source pollutant' by the 'Silence Protocol'. Execute purification."
Su Ting's pupils contracted: "...Master Qingdao?!"
The mecha slowly raised its head, the visor cracked open, revealing a man's face stitched together with metal wire.
His left eye was a mechanical prosthetic, but his right eye was moist, radiating a human light.
He stared at Granny Lin, his voice trembling slightly:
"Teacher...you really...want to go down this path?"
Grandma Lin's body trembled.
She stared intently at that face, then suddenly wrote three words in the sand:
"Chen...Mo?!"
The man closed his eyes, and a tear slid down from the mechanical eye.
"It's me. I survived. But I... I'm not human anymore."
The gray child roared, "How dare you call her teacher?! Aren't you the executioner who led the slaughter of singers?!"
“I am.” Chen Mo lowered his head. “But I was changed by them. Twenty years ago, I opposed the ‘Silence Protocol,’ so they arrested me, melted my vocal cords into the Qingdao Master System, and made me speak with other people’s throats and kill with other people’s frequencies… Every word I say is not my own… except for now.”
Su Ting stepped forward: "So you are... trapped?"
“Yes.” Chen Mo opened his eyes and looked directly at Su Ting. “I can help you open the third door—without sacrificing my voice. But the price is… I must destroy my own core. The ‘Silence Protocol’ AI within me will activate its self-destruct program before I die, blowing up the graveyard entrance. You only have three minutes.”
Grandma Lin wrote with trembling hands: "You... deserve to live."
Chen Mo smiled; it was the first time in twenty years that he had smiled from the bottom of his heart.
“I am already dead. What lives on is merely the shell of ‘Master of the Purification’. And you… teacher, the last lesson you taught me was—some voices should not be silenced.”